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NEGOTIATING FUR SUCCESS
Perusing an advertisement for a course on the internet took me back a lot of years, when I took a check from a grinning old fur buyer in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I was 12 years old at the time, and he told me I was a tough negotiator, as he looked over my first big buck mink that I had shot while squirrel and rabbit hunting along the banks of a wooded creek bottom. I didn’t have the slightest idea what he meant. The dad of a schoolmate was an ardent trapper and skinned out and stretched the pelt for me and advised me that the mink was top quality and should bring $30.The first buyer my dad took me to started at $15 and had worked his way up to $22.50 before I walked out. The next buyer, a gentlemanly old Jewish guy complemented me on the quality of the mink and handling of the pelt and gave it a value of $20, which he later explained was a test price to see if I had any idea of what the mink was worth. When I resolutely refused his offer, he smilingly went to $25 and after I stalled for a bit went to the $30 I was hoping for.The advertisement that keyed this long-time memory was for a set of tapes on the fine art of successful negotiating, and being an active writer, photographer, trapper and newby fur buyer, I was constantly negotiating and could make use of any advice I could get.I listened to the four tapes numerous times and picked up lots of useful tips, such as to never jump into a negotiation immediately if possible — to take the time to fully ascertain all the pros and cons of the outcome. This may be only a short time, measured in hours or days, depending on the situation. When dealing in dollars and cents, the first price you want to quote is one that, if you get what you are asking right off the bat, you can take a guided hunting trip or buy a new vehicle. The second choice you would settle for would be a price that would make you a bit of profit and leave you with a smile and the feeling of a job well done. The final price would be an amount that would pay for your efforts and keep you in the ball game and let you think you might just be in the right line of work.A couple weeks after going over the tapes for the umpteenth time, I got a call from a major corporation’s advertising agency that wanted to use a photo of mine for a national advertisement for a year’s time with unlimited usage and wanted a price for such use, a pricey negotiation. I stated that I needed a short time to come up with a figure and would call them the next day.I figured such use should bring $1,000, so I’d start out at $2,000, then drop to $1,500 and reluctantly relent at the $1,000 price, if need be. When I quoted my opening bid of $2,000 there was dead silence on the phone, and I figured I’d priced myself out and lost a potential client. Not the first and probably not the last. “Wow! Thanks,” responded the gal I had been negotiating with, who stated exuberantly that the company figured the photo use for that major advertising would run between $5,000 and $10,000! Thorough research on use was another piece of advice on the tapes, which I obviously hadn’t absorbed sufficiently. I trashed the tapes right after that phone conversation.A few years back, when fur prices peaked and I was eyeball deep in trapping and fur buying, I was having coffee in my hometown of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, with the retired government trapper and several local old-timers and discussing hunting and trapping in past years when a local rancher who lived right on the New Mexico state line and had access to some prime bobcat habitat came in and wanted to know if I was interested in buying five prime bobcat pelts. Informing me, boisterously, that I was going to have to pay top dollar for them.He went out and hauled the cats out of his pickup. I graded them and offered him $1,000 for the lot. He sputtered and told me in no uncertain terms he wouldn’t take less than $300 for the big tom, so I regraded the five cats an offered him $300 for the super tom, $250, $175 and $150 for the other three adult cats and $100 for a kitten to which he readily agreed. He yipped when he saw the check was for $25 less than I originally offered, but sometimes in negotiations you had better watch what you ask for or it can bite you in the butt.
